Posts by wgae

YAPRS - Yet Another PR Stunt

I admit that the idea is nice. Wouldn't we all have a nice beer (or two, three, four, five) at the pub and still be able to drive home safely afterwards? In the own car?! Great, just great!

But wait! There is a problem: what if the robo-driven car causes an accident while your were dreaming away on the passenger seat? What if the robo-car kills someone on the road? Who will be responsible? You? You're going to point to Google or the car manufacturer (as you were entirely drunk). Google? The car manufacturer? Both will hide behind tons of disclaimers.

So in the end - you will be solely responsible for the damage done by your robot driven car. Which makes the whole effort entirely pointless. In that case you will rather drive yourself, which you shouldn't when you're drunk. Pointless.

As I said - the idea is nice. File under "yet another Google PR stunt".

Google are Product Marketing Kings - not!

I think the core question is - why is Google unable to successfully launch any new product? And I am talking about NEW products, not the long list of acquisitions (I know that they have successfully purchased companies, e.g. Blogger, Youtube, Doubleclick).

And the answer is: they lack decent Product Marketing skills. Sure, the people they hire may be top-notch product marketing managers, but they just don't know how to apply those skills to Google, the company. All they can do is slap together a product that works and then launch it to the public for testing. They do not PLAN the product launch, and they do not market the product using classical ways (which includes serious concept testing in focus groups and closed user groups).

For example, I would expect Google to intensely test each product prior to launch. And I know they do! So how comes, that there are spying cars that "accidently" record WLAN sessions? Because they were SET UP to collect that data. It was not a mistake. "Buzz" was launched with everybody automatically opted in. It is futile to tell the public that this happened "by mistake". And presto people and the press were up in arms. Why/how could this product be launched without anybody noticing?

My take? Google is a one-and-a-half trick pony (search, text ads), and their product marketing is entirely clueless or a bunch of people that remain unheard by management. Their top management "listens to numbers" instead of real users, real focus groups, and real alpha tests. And should they talk to users, they probably talk to pure geeks and Google fan boys, not to the average guy. So it is understandable that Google don't have a clue and launch crap.

Google wants to know what you are printing?!

No way. I have de-googled my life and told my family, friends, and colleagues to do the same. (So I am probably not belonging to the target group for this feature.) There is absolutely no need for MV to know what I am printing, and when. Users should be aware that a print job may be sent unknowingly to more than just their own cloud-aware printer. Not good. As with all things Google, it's a privacy nightmare waiting to happen.

Look at those dead bastards. Nice.

Last battle of dying media

MSM news outlets like The Times are desperate. Caught in the powerful mix of the past and the future, they failed to realize that their product is simply - not good. They blame the Internet where they should be looking in the mirror.

Many journos have reduced themselves to mere PR spinmeisters, taking what comes their way as press releases, rewriting it with a bit of personal spin, and then publishing it. And they think this is "quality journalism". It is not.

Where can true quality journalism be found today? At independent sites, like El Reg, that take the effort to research stuff, even if controversial, and to point out problems with the PR spin. Quality journalism also survives at blogs that are fed up with the bias of mainstream reporting and do their own research and reporting.

The Times is not a quality product any more. That's why charging for access will FAIL. This will be one of the last battles of a medium nobody cares about any longer.

I feel insecure, too...

...and absolutely support the introduction of full body scanners at the entrance of our office. (Did I mention that the security guy is an old pal of mine? I bet he will snap a couple of *cough* cool shots of certain *cough* colleagues).

99.9% certain...

...or maybe just "maybe"? Didn't the folks in MV announce back in January that they are likely to pull the plug? And what happened? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Nichts.

The Chinese government does not care one yota about Google. Some Chinese may care abotu Google, but not enough to put pressure on the government. So, what's exactly the point of threatening again and again and again?

Please do pull out of China now, and stop the meaningless PR about this.

IPCC?

The IPCC has become the laughing stock for everyone with a critical mind. Now it's about time to bring the obvious nonsense to our elected leaders [cough] and make them stop any legislation based upon IPCC reports. It's as easy as that. Now, when is the next election? ;-)

Thanks El Reg

That you are one of the few news outlets not parotting the official nonsensus of global warming! AGW has long been identified as big money-making scheme for the elite (e.g. Al Gore) who want to simply destroy western lifestyle. Keep up the good work!

Goog bye, goog bye!

Google Hubris

"Google is not an invader of countries. We're a country."

Eh?

What's up next? Google to get a seat in the UN? Google to want some missiles so that you can declare war on (insert real country name here)? And what about elections and transparency in beautiful Google country? Last time I checked, three guys held all the voting power.

What I am really concerned about is that this statement did not come from a t-shirt wearing hippie fresh from university doing some fun coding in MV, but from an apparently important senior guy, chief technology advocate, Michael Jones. If THIS (and Eric "Privacy" Schmidt) is the best they can do to handle such tricky issues like privacy, they are doomed anyway. Can't they afford media trainings any more?

But hey, fortunately real countries can change real laws and thus change their real relationship to "Google" pretty fast. Time to talk to our MPs now.

Google to stop censoring in China...

Italian decision

I am split over the Italian decision.

On one hand I like that Google has taken a massive blow for their Youtube service. On the other hand I think the Italians somehow have gotten the wrong people. Shouldn't they have been gone after the filmers and uploaders in the first place? Then again, Google could have prevented this by manually checking the content. Obviously, they don't want to do this for several reasons (manual labor being one of them).

Google. In Germany. Massive headwind.

The streetview story ran on the main news of public TV yesterday night, which is a clear sign that the German government is very concerned about streetview. It is also a topic in the major magazines, and the minstery for consumer protection has provided a template letter for every punter to remove his house from Google streetview.

Schmidt is right...

...he does not want "dumb pipe" operators. He does not want any operators AT ALL (which is a big difference). He would like to take over or destroy the business of the operators. In Google's view, there seems to be only one company allowed - Google.

Don't worry

And the result will be...

...that it will cost them too much to build a high-speed Internet. Maybe in MV, so that Larry and Sergej can enjoy a faster Internet at home, but that's it. They can not afford it. Virtually no company can. Only governments could (but even they shy away from the massive investments needed.)

Some insights

Backbones are typically connected by DWDM technology. This allows links of 10, 40, and soon 100 Gbps to be transmitted over a single fiber between network nodes. For traditional networks (i.e. for those with traditional DSL speeds for the subscriber), the bandwidth offered by a single 40 Gbps card is sufficient for 2500 users downloading 16 Mbps each.

And this is were the problem begins when we think about having 1 Gbps to each home. Suddenly, that same 40 Gbps card will only be good to support 40 subscribers (at peak time when all subscribers are online). Even the new, expensive 100 Gbps equipment will just support 100 subscribers (again, not considering that there will be some slack because not everyone is online at the same time and maxing out the connection). That 100 Gbps card would be able to serve 6250 subscribers at 16 Mbps.

In other words: the investment to get that traffic from and to the subscriber will be tremendous, also in the backend.

Apart from the practicalities of this (like digging up the road and your garden), the financial investment for the network infrastructure will be massive. I think it could easily exceed Google's abilities.

To get 1 Gbps

My PC has a gigabit interface, but still I am limited to 6 Mbps downstream by my ISP. Shall I now return the PC to the dealer?

Unfortunately, you DO need FTTH if you don't wanna share it with someone else, and that's the big deal, right? Having 1 Gbps for you alone.

If you share the connection with your neighbors (i.e. fiber-to-the-building, or FTTB) in the same appartment complex, then you won't get 1 Gbps. You'll get a share of the bandwidth. Expect congestions in the evenings. (Simple calculation: 20 families in your complex, and you get 1 Gbps/20 = 50 Mbps when all the folks are online.)

And with fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) things get even slower because you still have copper between the curb and the house.

Truth is - if you want to have 1 Gbps in your home, you need to have all-fiber infrastructure from the core to your home. Good luck with getting that anytime soon (without digging up the garden). Get over it. It is a PR stunt.

Won't happen anytime soon

This is another PR stunt by the folks in MV.

Let's face it: to get 1 Gbps to your home they need to dig up the street and get the fiber directly to your house (and, if living in an appartment complex, to your appartment). ONLY THEN you will get 1 Gbps.

The investment required to do this for a big number of users will exceed even the financial capabilities of Google. (Guess why none of the existing providers has tried this, despite having been in the business for ages?)

But even if they manage to get 1 Gbps to your home, do not expect the services out there to be able to deliver/support that kind of bandwidth. And while we are at it - which services do need that speed anyway? High-res video can be done with 100 Mbps which is commercially available already in certain markets. How about online backup, file sharing, online editing of files? Only few users will actually want to do this.

Anyway, now even the dumbest ISPs in the world will recognize that Google IS evil. Expect a lot of resistance.

Paris, because "they told me that they have to dig up my lawn to get me the highspeed internet".

Welcome to The Real World

It's actually quite refreshing to see that yet another Google activity fails bit by bit. Up until 2006 I had been working in the mobile industry, and I can tell you that real customers who shell out real money for real devices are looking for three things...

1) A stellar device that does what the customer wants them to, always. And everywhere.

2) To see and touch that stellar device prior to purchase

3) Customer support with a real human being (who actually helps them)

Google has not fulfilled the expectation so far, so they are entering the real world now. Good.

YMMV

Just checked on a couple of popular companies. IBM, MSFT, TWX, HPQ, ORCL pay dividends. AAPL, YHOO, JAVA do not pay dividends. Dunno whether those who do not pay dividends have a two-class voting structure, but the combination of "not paying dividends and not giving voting power" is highly suspicious in my view.

Erm, they will keep their voting power...

...because of their evil dual-class stock structure.

Google's Class B shares, owned by Page, Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt and some directors, hold 10 times the voting power of its regular, Class A stock. That's why Google is one big pyramid scheme: if you are a plain stock owner (i.e. Class A and not on an employee stock option program), there is only ONE way to make money, and that is from positive stock development! Buy GOOG and try to sell higher.

Evil? Well, sure. Remember that Google has not paid any dividends up to now. So your chance of making money from dividends (i.e. the classical way to earn money with an investment) is zero. And this will not change unless the Class B stock owners decide otherwise. And as they do not have interest to share the money, they probably won't vote for dividends to be paid. The whole talk about "earnings per share" is just an indicator for the company development, that is irrelevant because no dividends are paid to the investors.

Those who buy and recommend GOOG are gamblers. They can not decide on the future of the company and they do not get dividends. They ONLY gain from selling stock higher (i.e. by finding the next dumb person).

Also, please note that Brin, Page, Schmidt, and some of the directors have sold already billions of stock. That's the entire purpose of Google: to enrich the owners of Class B stock.

I just wonder why...

...so many people believe what they read in the media? Just because Google is saying that Gmail accounts of dissidents were the target, that does not necessarily mean that Gmail accounts of dissidents were the target. And if they say that they "secretly" negotiate with the Chinese government, well, that does not mean anything either. I think Google have been facing a real threat to their IP and are now completely lost as to what to do: stay in China and live with the ubiquitous threat of being spied, or leave China and the massive growth story behind.

Microsoft finally steps up to fight Google

“We will delete the entire Internet Protocol address associated with search queries at six months rather than at 18 months.”

They are talking about the ENTIRE IP-Address being removed. This is far far better than what Google does. IIRC, Google just "anonymizes" the last Byte of the IP address, making your computer one of a pool of 256 computers.

Maybe Google wanted to charge...

There must be much more to this story...

...than people might think.

Google will reach nothing when talking to the Chinese government. Do they seriously think they can change the regime? So, if they continue to do business in China, we know the results will be censored. If they pull out, they lose much more than just search market share. They lose their growth story. They lose access to the single most important growth market. They lose market value at home.

And they will be damaging hardware manufacturers as well. Anything with embedded Google products will not go on sale before the Google stuff is removed. That laptop with Google as default search? That handset with Chrome OS? Google's hardware "partners" will be delighted. (And forget about launching the Google phone over there anytime soon.)

So, if you give up all this, there must be another reason.

Do they have a PR problem in the west? Do people in the west finally switch to other services, thanks to statements made by Eric "Mr. Privacy" Schmidt?

Or is it just plain hubris (as always with Google) who think they can run the world?

Also, if they worry about government agencies accessing information stored on Google servers, maybe they should pull out of the U.S. as well? ;-)

Just co-incidence?

With the recent development in China ("Google may exit China after 'highly targeted' attack") Google probably has more than a copyright problem with the friendly folks down there? It is quite weird to see two odd PR statements from the chocolate factory requiring discussions with the Chinese regime.

No surprise here

...really. Anyone who would have expected anything else (regardless of prior statements made by anyone on anything) is a fool. High-res images will probably transmitted over free & open WiFi connections to the server.

Ah, and if you supply the airline with your social networking account/s, the image/s will go right up there for all to see. If not, only Google will get the high-res image and will produce a pixelated version for Google to use.

After all, Eric "data privacy guru" Schmidt knows best how to deal with that.

Good to see someone waking up...

...albeit German and therefore a bit slow maybe, but hey - it's a start. :-) What we're seeing here is careful checking of public sentiment. Sarcozy began, Merkel followed, now a 2nd line German politician checks whether anti-Google statements resonate with the general audience. Expect more of this (in Europe) in 2010. Oh, what joy!

2010 will be the year...

...where Google will be facing significant counterforce from the general public, at least in Europe. MSM and politicians (with the need to profile themselves) will create a wave of anti-Google sentiment previously unseen. And frankly, most of us know they are right, because we have been trying for years to make them aware.

With all the recent events (in fact, too many to mention here) it will not take much more to see the average guy becoming suspicous. And yep, it'll be fun to watch Google tumble.

BTW, wouldn't it be time for El Reg to get rid of Google's prying eyes? My ad blocker mentions Analytics, Doubleclick ads, and Adsense ads? Do you earn that much from Google that you need to have this? Hey com'on, you're El Reg, you don't need that...!